November 16th, 2010

Life is riddled with ups and downs. Most every 'up' is followed by a 'down', though sometimes, an 'up' is followed by more 'up'. The same goes for 'down'.

There are a number of things that have shaped me and my life. Some of them agonizingly obvious, some not so. Yet, when an old memory comes floating up from my past, I cling to it. It might be a happy or sad one, but either way, I find myself helplessly clinging onto it.

Some of these things are harder to let go of, but eventually, the tide turns and you find you're better off today, than you were the day before. Ordeals you might have survived at first as a younger human being sometimes grip and haunt you longer than necessary when they eventually pop up in due course of time. Some of them hurt, some put you into an emotional state of numbness that grips your heart and pumps it at a different pace. Some of them just leave you breathless with that lasting afterglow that we've come to associate with some other things in our lives.

There are times when the past looms its seductive head over you, but sooner or later, you learn to push it aside and move on. I've been there a million times, and though their effects still linger on and treat me as one of their own, I know I am what and who I am because of what these memories are to me.